NFF: Keshi To Know Fate This Week

Nigeria will decide in four days whether Stephen Keshi will continue as the country’s coach, according to the president of the country’s football federation.

Keshi has been without a contract since after the World Cup in Brazil last summer.
As a result, his assistant, Daniel Amokachi, will be in charge of two friendly matches against Bolivia and South Africa later this month.

“I told the senate that within 10 days and by God’s grace within the next four days this thing (Keshi’s appointment or not) would be completed. It’s either he is in or he is not in,” said NFF boss Amaju Pinnick.

Pinnick maintained he expects Keshi to accept the new contract without any objections.
“So we are not saying 100% that it is Keshi, we are not saying that I can assure you 100%. It can be other persons. It can only be Keshi provided he accepts 100% the contract we have offered him. If he doesn’t accept it, then I can tell you right away that he is not going to be our coach,” he stated.

“Now if Keshi says for example that one clause in that contract is not good for him, it means he doesn’t want the job, so we can now open it and look for other coaches that are ready to coach Nigeria.

“Like I have said before, I will say again, if Keshi decided not to accept the contract, we are not going to change the contract for any other person we want to employ because to us what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

“We said let’s see if we can offer him a new contract and the contract has clause to protect us because just in the recent past somebody took us to CAS and won the case and it was huge on us.”

He said the NFF decided on their own to offer Keshi a new deal and not that they were forced to do so.

“Whether we like it or not, Keshi is one of only two Africans who have won the Nations Cup as a player and a coach. So, we must accord him that respect. Is not as if we have any personal interest of bringing him back,” he defended.